This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Wednesday December 23 -- Got news or an update?

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Hard on the cautiously upbeat note from Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, comes Moody’s Investors Service with its own take on The McClatchy Co.’s proposed credit facility amendment -- hinting an upgrade could be in the works.

Moody’s said it changed its ratings outlook to developing from negative.

“The change to a developing rating outlook reflects the broader range of possible rating outcomes than indicated by the prior negative rating outlook given the potential improvement now in the company's maturity profile and reduction in near-term default risk that could result from a refinancing of its $1.1 billion of 2011 maturities,” analyst John Puchalla wrote.

A refinancing could lead to a positive rating outlook or an upgrade if Moody's believes free cash flow would be sufficient to allow McClatchy to continue to meaningfully reduce debt, meet other obligations including required pension contributions, and reduce leverage to a more sustainable level.

Last week we reported that Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings and his GLSEN organization were promoting a book to children that included pornographic “artwork” of men having sex while boy scouts looked on.

We also reported that Barack Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings and his GLSEN organization promoted a book to children that romaticized the rape of of a 13 year-old.

Also last week we reported that Kevin Jennings’ organization GLSEN was even promoting a children’s book that detailed first-graders having sex.

snip

Remember as you read this that Kevin Jennings is today the nation’s Safe Schools Czar.

snip

Through GLSEN’s online ordering system, called “GLSEN BookLink,” featured prominently on their Web site, teachers can buy the books to use as required classroom assignments, or students can buy them to read on their own.

According to GLSEN’s own press releases from the period during which its recommended reading list was developed, the organization’s three areas of focus were creating “educational resources, public policy agenda, [and] student organizing programs”; in other words, the reading list (chief among its “educational resources”) was of prime importance in GLSEN’s efforts to influence the American educational system.

The list is divided into three main categories: books recommended for grades K-6; books recommended for grades 7-12; and books for teachers. (The books on the list span all genres: fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, even poetry.)

Out of curiosity to see exactly what kind of books Kevin Jennings and his organization think American students should be reading in school, our team chose a handful at random from the over 100 titles on GLSEN’s grades 7-12 list, and began reading through.

What we discovered shocked us. We were flabbergasted. Rendered speechless.

We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that weren’t merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between pre-schoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships; stories of public masturbation, anal sex in restrooms, affairs between students and teachers, five-year-olds playing sex games, semen flying through the air.

One memoir even praised becoming a prostitute as a way to increase one’s self-esteem. Above all, the books seemed to have less to do with promoting tolerance than with an unabashed attempt to indoctrinate students into a hyper-sexualized worldview.

We knew that unless we carefully documented what we were reading, the public would have a hard time accepting it.

Mere descriptions on our part could not convey the emotional gut reaction one gets when seeing what Kevin Jennings wants kids to read as school assignments.

So we began scanning pages from each of the books, and then made exact transcriptions of the relevant passages on each page.

For today’s report we give you another of of GLSEN’s recommended books for 7-12 graders. This book Revolutionary Voices includes a very graphic story about a young sex worker who praises prostitution and promotes sadomasochism.

(An interview with a “sex worker” who praises prostitution as a way to raise one’s self-esteem and have empowering sexual experiences.)

Minal is a young queer from India and has been a sex worker in the S/M scene for a year and a half.

He has taken a break from sex work and lives in San Francisco. In this interview Minal talks about his journey into sex work as a way of uplifting his self-esteem around body-image issues, his feeling of empowerment doing sex work in drag. . .

S: How did you get into sex work?

M: Well, before I get into that I have to tell you how I got into S/M generally, since I used to be a complete vanilla bottom. I’m gay, by the way; I’m exploring being transgendered, and I’ve been doing drag for about ten years, on and off.

Drag was never a sexual thing for me, I’ve always had sex “as a guy.” Around March of last year a friend asked me about rape fantasies—she wanted to know what my fantasies were.

I realized I hadn’t been fantasizing at all. When I did start thinking about it, my fantasies were all about whipping.

I started reading up on S/M, and it was making me interested in sex for the first time. Before, I never knew what the big deal was with sex.

I put a personal ad in the paper to do scenes with different people, and I realized that for what I was doing, I could be getting good money.

I had a lot of friends in the sex industry who were asking me, “Why aren’t you charging for what you’re doing?”

So that summer I did it for free and learned what I needed to do, and by November I started putting out ads in the Bay Area Reporter.

My ads were sort of genderfuck: my picture was taken from the neck down in a corset, fishnets and garter belt. It was a dom-type look.

I realized there weren’t that many guys into doing S/M professionally, and the ones that were were really butch—so I stood out a lot.

It was great. It was the first time I had really good sex, I was getting paid for it, and I felt totally in control. It was good, but I was wondering how many people I was losing by advertising as a fem dom.

I started putting ads online without the fem look and got a lot more response, so I switched to just having a nude picture in the paper as opposed to a girlish one.

The responses were more than I could handle, which is a good thing. That’s how I got into sex work, as a way of exploring my sexuality.. . .

S: How has your self-image improved from doing sex work?

M: I feel a lot more confident and secure with myself. I think that has a lot to do with S/M and coming into my own power.

Does this sound like something you want your 7th grader to read?

Is this porn really appropriate for 13 year-olds?

Last week 12 conservative organizations sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions demanding that Obama’s Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings be Fired. You can help out too by contacting the committee yourself here.

Of all wicked organizations currently in operation in the United States, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has to be among the worst.

What makes this radical homosexual group especially dangerous is the carefully crafted public image they have concocted that effectively masks the depths of their depravity.

It's an image that is painstakingly guarded by a complicit mainstream media that balks at any notion of holding them accountable for their offensive behavior.

GLSEN touts itself as an organization designed to combat the bullying and mistreatment of gay and lesbian students in public schools across America.

Certainly, this is an objective that anyone should support.

Regardless of how you feel about the issue of homosexuality, school is a place where any student should feel safe and be free of threats, intimidation, and bullying.

It is this image that GLSEN uses to work its way into school systems across America, conducting their vaunted "Day of Silence" to raise awareness of the mistreatment of homosexual young people bullied into the shadows.

And it's GLSEN's supposed fight to stop bullying that undoubtedly led President Obama to promote the group's founder and executive director Kevin Jennings to head up the office of Safe and Drug Free Schools within the Department of Education.

But the reality of GLSEN is something quite different from its public persona.

In fact, as a school teacher myself, my experiences with GLSEN and its materials have demonstrated that their interest is not in ending bullying, but rather redirecting the intimidation onto new targets – specifically, young children and teenagers who profess traditional moral values and who have been raised in Christian homes.

GLSEN's own curriculum guides for teachers advise them to – without parental knowledge or consent – question their students on the validity of their religious upbringing.

Does anyone remember the TV show "Supermarket Sweep"? Contestants would compete with one another by careening through a supermarket and grabbing as many products as they could toss into a basket.

The winner was the shopper whose cart carried the biggest price tag when the bell sounded.

It's a fitting image for the way Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have handled the most important domestic issue of the decade.

They've raced down the health policy aisles, sweeping items off the shelves and into their legislative carts, heedless of nutritional value, taste, or cost.

As items dropped out on the hairpin turns, others were shoved into the spaces. Harry Reid inserted the Medicare "buy-in" at the 11th hour and just as quickly withdrew it under pressure.

No organizing principle has governed the contents of their baskets (Pelosi added and jettisoned abortion coverage), just an urgent imperative to pass something.

And now, as the clock winds down, they are declaring, as a journalistic cheerleader at the Washington Post put it, "a legislative feat of epic proportions."

Actually, it was the sloppiest and most slapdash legislative process ever to accompany a major bill.

The 383-page manager's amendment, making changes to the Senate bill, was released on the morning of the cloture vote.

Secrecy marked Reid's handling of the bill throughout. Not only Republicans, but Democrats, too, were kept from studying the legislation.

Payoffs to wavering Sens. Lieberman, Landrieu, and Nelson, on the other hand, were blatant.

The Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, in concert with the White House, have bullied, bribed, and rushed their members to vote on this legislation so that the deed could be done before constituents -- who oppose it forcefully -- could confront their representatives face-to-face over the Christmas break.

The Democrats have endured bruising internecine conflicts and risked the loss of between 20 and 40 seats in 2010 (Pelosi's estimate) for this.

And what have they achieved? Their goal -- a single-payer system or a glide path to one -- remains as distant as ever.

Instead, they have produced (or will, after the conference committee) an enormous new $2.5 trillion octopus of federal regulation that will increase premiums, contribute to medical cost inflation, reduce quality and choice of care, and deeply politicize an aspect of life that most Americans regard as sacrosanct.

Additionally, and most alarmingly, it will aggravate the already crushing debt we are accumulating.

"To get all 58 Democrats and two independents on board, Reid, among other things, had to drop a government-run insurance option and a Medicare buy-in and had to increase taxes by $25 billion more than planned, bringing the total tax increases to $518 billion."

Over the weekend, the Democrats in Washington celebrated the fact that they were able to wheel and deal amongst themselves to clear all the hurdles necessary to pass a massive healthcare reform package.

Their mood is one of euphoria but the rest of the nation does not seem to be sharing in it.

In fact, for the rest of the nation the mood could be characterized more as one of skepticism and fear rather than one of hope and happiness.

That mood is not surprising since according to Gallup polling only 25% of Americans view the Democrat-controlled Congress favorably.

And according to the Real Clear Politics averages, President Barack Obama’s approval ratings are already under 50%.

That latter stat is somewhat ironic given that just over a year ago he was bragging that he was the change Americans had all been waiting for.

But it is the change that he and the Democrats have brought which have led to the low approval ratings for both Obama and those in Congress.

The embattled Razzle Dazzle Czar, White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers says that the Obamas were planning a "non-religious Christmas." (Oxymoron Alert)

According to the Sunday New York Times the confession emerged at a luncheon earlier this year with former White House social secretaries.

The ladies must have choked on their Caesar salads when Rogers went on to announce that the Obamas did not intend to display the Christmas Creche--the manger scene that traditionally occupies a central spot in the East Room.

(This revelation reportedly drew a gasp from the retired social secretaries). The idea was that the absence of the Creche...

In light of Obama's many public odes to Islam, most recently his Ramadan speech, I, for one, am eagerly looking forward to his heartfelt and moving Christmas eve speech, wherein he talks about the religious meaning of Christmas, and honors the foundational contributions of Christianity and its worldview to the great tradition of liberty which led to the founding and growth of the United States.

Rasmussen reported:The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 25% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President.

Today's downward revision is far worse than it first appears. While third quarter GDP was revised down by a 0.6% (2.2% vs. 2.8% previously), the contribution from motor vehicle output (which was massively stimulated by Cash for Clunkers in a one-off fashion) remains enormous.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) pointed out some rather astounding language in the Senate health care bill during floor remarks tonight.

First, he noted that there are a number of changes to Senate rules in the bill--and it's supposed to take a 2/3 vote to change the rules. And then he pointed out that the Reid bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medical Advisory Board cannot be repealed by future Congresses:

Senate Marxist Reid To make it almost Impossible to Repeal ObamaCare CFP)

Every day the news coming out of Washington D.C. just gets worse and worse.

Just when I thought I could no longer be shocked by the totalitarian Senate and Executive branch, I was…and am.

On Monday, the Marxist-run Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid decided that he would make it virtually impossible for the American people to overcome Congress’ Machiavellian ObamaCare Death Plan.

Betrayal is now the operating agenda of both the US Congress and Executive branch.

On the advice of the Marxist Senate “Parliamentarian”, using an illegal “procedural” measure, Marxist Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) wrote an amendment to ObamaCare Section 3403that states “it shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

RedState reports that this “applies to regulations imposed on doctors and patients by the Independent Medicare Advisory Boards a/k/a the Death Care Panels

About that Democratc 'Victory' in Health Care Reform... (American Thinker)

The Democrats are VERY happy they got the 60-40 Health Care Reform (HCR) vote, but instead of thinking that they have a political victory, the Dems should wait until...

... Until more voters notice that some Senators voted for the bill mainly because they secured special treatments for their State on the backs of others states.

... Until State taxes and fees will go up for everyone (including the poor) in most states, due to higher Health Care costs that this bill puts on most States.

... Until seniors notice that Medicare will go through very steep cuts in the coming years, thus making it more difficult for seniors to get the care they want and need.

...Until voters notice that cuts in Medicare and increased taxes will in 2010 hit a lot Americans, workers with fat health plans, and small business owners, while most benefits" of HCR kick-in only in late 2013.

... Until half the currently 12% uninsured Americans notice that they still won't be insured even when 2013 comes around (or perhaps they will be fined with almost $1,000 per-capita if the family that is not covered).

... Until the next November when voters will likely be well aware of all the above facts, and thus Dems will lose a lot seats in both houses of Congress.

Then, and only then, should the Democrats assess if HCR was indeed any kind victory for them.

MSNBC Taking Orders From White House...WHILE On The Air (Flopping Aces)

Must be nice to be a liberal reporter and to get calls from the White House eh? Did I say calls? Oh, I meant orders:

This is all over this kerfuffle: During his syndicated radio show Friday, libtalker and MSNBC host Ed Schultz relayed to listeners how he observed 'Morning Joe' Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski take feedback directly from the White House during their program last week.

Schultz appeared on Thursday's Morning Joe and directly challenged Obama's David Axelrod on the current version of the health care bill under consideration in Congress.

Interestingly, this particular segment has since generated a great deal of attention elsewhere, given the defensive nature of the White House advisor and the supposed conflict between the far left and the administration:

And here’s what Ed told radio listeners the next day about the visit:

SCHULTZ (07:14): I just want to get things clear, it was not arranged for me to have a question for David Axelrod.

SCHULTZ (08:12): So Mika starts looking at her Blackberry and so does Scarborough and obviously the White House is texting them or emailing them or whatever and they didn’t like the show.

Because Arianna had been on there, I’m on there, Howard Dean had been on there and they wanted some balance.

Now think about that - here’s the White House getting in contact with ‘Morning Joe’ because they’re afraid there’s too many lefties on the air!

Now if that’s not sensitivity at its highest level, I don’t know what is! I told ya a few days ago they had rabbit ears!

They don’t like anything that’s being said right now, they’re getting beat up!

EXCLUSIVE: Time Spent Dips, at Newspaper Web Sites (Editor and Publisher) Good night and good luck!

NEW YORK The average time spent per person at the top newspaper Web sites took a hit in November compared to the presidential election month of November 2008.

Of the top 30 Web sites, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had the highest average time per person at 23 minutes and 38 seconds.

Nielsen Online, which provided the data, defines the time per person as the average time spent at the site over the course of a month. (Nielsen also vastly expanded its panels in June 2009 and that could affect year-over-year trending.)

Below is the average time spent per person (hours: minutes: seconds) in November 2009 compared to November 2008, ranked by unique users.

White House Blocks Testimony by First Lady's Ex-Top Aide in Walpin Case (FOX)

Republican efforts to interview a former top aide to Michelle Obama in the controversial case of a fired inspector general have been stymied by the White House, the the top Republican looking into the case said Tuesday

The White House counsel's office has blocked Republican investigators from interviewing Jackie Norris, former chief of staff for the first lady, about President Obama's dismissal of former AmeriCorps Inspector General Gerald Walpin.

Republican investigators from the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform have wanted to question Norris -- who is now senior adviser to the Corporation for National and Community Service, the organization that oversees AmeriCorps -- since they discovered earlier this month that she met with Alan Solomont, chairman of CNCS on June 9, the day before Walpin was fired.

House majority leader implicated in corruption (PA - and yes, he is a Dem) (Bucks County Courier Times)

HARRISBURG (AP) - The majority leader of the Pennsylvania House directed illegal campaign activities by legislative employees and raised campaign funds from inside the Capitol, according to witness testimony in transcripts obtained by The Associated Press.

The witnesses in the widening probe, which has reached top levels of the state General Assembly, allege conduct similar to that for which 25 others have been charged. Todd Eachus has not been charged.

John Paul Jones, a $62,000-a-year legislative research specialist until December 2007, told the grand jury that Eachus, D-Luzerne, brought him onto the state payroll after the November 2006 election, which returned Democrats to the majority in the House, with a cover story about his legislative work.

“That was sort of like the code of, here’s what I do, but really I was solely there as a political guy,” Jones said.

Jones testified that Eachus told him he considered the General Assembly’s capability to produce public service announcements a free tool to help incumbents get re-elected.

The transcripts were provided on the condition of anonymity by a person connected to the defendants, who are expected to go on trial in January.

The polls have been clear for quite some time: By a substantial margin, Americans oppose the efforts of Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats to enact a massive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, one that would greatly expand the federal government’s role.

Significantly, the President’s deeply held positions on healthcare were derived largely from the influence of a politically aggressive group of longtime Marxists whose worldviews were consistent with those Obama had already developed from other radical influences in his life.

But before we examine who those particular Marxists were, let us establish, with certainty, what Obama’s long-term objectives for healthcare actually are.

As an Illinois state senator in 2003, Obama unambiguously told an AFL-CIO conference:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer, universal healthcare [plan]... That’s what I’d like to see.”

In a single-payer system, a government-run organization would manage the healthcare of every man, woman, and child in the United States—collecting all related fees and paying out all related costs.

At an SEIU Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007, Obama sang the same tune—though this time he conceded that the attainment of his ultimate vision might require a gradual, incremental approach:

“There’s going to be, potentially, some transition process. I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out...”

In the summer of 2008, when a campaign audience member asked him to comment on single-payer healthcare, Obama candidly replied:

“If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system.” Earlier this year, however, the President—recognizing the American public’s opposition to such a system, as reflected in every reputable opinion poll—made a calculated political move to withdraw the single-payer option from the bargaining table.

Addressing the workers at Birmingham Coroner's Court, he said: 'I have dealt with far too many deaths from NHS hospitals in recent years. 'We hold out our arms and trust medical professionals to inject things into us and the thought some people do not check something that could kill us is appalling.

'You hold our lives in your hands every day when you are at work when people need to act professionally. Too many people are unprofessional.'

In August, Democrats in Denver tried to blame conservative Tea Party activists and Obamacare foes of vandalism at the party’s downtown headquarters.

Remember?

Even after the hammer-wielding suspect was revealed to be a far Left anarchist nutball who had worked for the SEIU-tied 527 group Colorado Citizens Coalition and once canvassed for a state Democratic candidate, state Democratic Party chair Pat Waak clung to her bogus indictment of conservatives:

“I stand by my statement that I think there are people opposed to health care reform and there has been a lot of rhetoric that has prompted an atmosphere that I don’t think is constructive,” Waak said Wednesday.

“It’s such a polarizing issue. It shouldn’t be.”

Well, the hate-crime hoaxer pleaded guilty in Denver yesterday:

Activist Maurice Joseph Schwenkler, 24, pleaded guilty Monday to a second-degree misdemeanor for smashing windows at the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters last summer.

He received one year of probation and was ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution for the Aug. 25 incident at the party headquarters at West Eighth Avenue and Santa Fe Drive, according to the Denver district attorney’s office.

Schwenkler and an accomplice, who was never identified, took a hammer to 11 plate-glass windows. Police caught them in the act, and Schwenkler was arrested.

Being a Democrat Party official means never having to say you’re sorry for smearing grass-roots conservative activists.

Nevada's stimulus-funded weatherization programs are living down to expectations of inefficiency and incompetence.

What a surprise.

Of all the debt-growing, make-work boondoggles crafted by Congress this year, the "green jobs" grants set aside to make low-income homes more energy-efficient left elected Democrats especially excited: "We're handing out welfare, creating jobs and saving the planet!"

The state got $18.6 million in weatherization funds, with the condition that all the money be spent by June 30.

About 1,850 homes with incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty level were supposed to get new insulation, new caulking and the minor repairs needed to make a dent in their utility bills.

Do the math. That's $10,000 per house in labor, materials and administrative costs.

All to save a handful of Nevadans $500 per year in energy costs?

A 20-year return on investment (not including interest) is a lousy deal for taxpayers.

If this work were economically viable -- if it made financial sense for homeowners and businesses, if there was enough demand for the service to create competition among contractors, if workers' skills were valuable enough that they could expect to remain employed for years to come -- it would have taken root years ago, without the intervention of politicians.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Heartland Publications LLC, the owner of 23 daily newspapers and other publications in nine states, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday after agreeing with its major lender on a plan to cut the company's debt load by more than half.

The privately held company is one of at least a dozen newspaper publishers forced into bankruptcy protection by the recession, which dampened advertising sales in an industry that was already seeing readers and advertisers migrate to the Web.

The situation is dire when a 7.7% drop looks good. And that's where monthly magazines are in January, according to Media Industry Newsletter, which recently released ad page figures for the coming month's issues of about 115 monthlies.

Of the 115 monthlies tracked by MIN in January, over half (62, or 54%) saw ad pages decline compared to January 2009.

What's more, the losses were fairly top-heavy. While 17 of these titles (15% of the total), posted relatively modest declines of less than 10%, 15 (13%) experienced drops of 10%-20% and 30 (26%) tumbled over 20%.

It's also noteworthy that 37 titles usually measured by MIN didn't publish an issue this January -- either because they combined their December and January issues or simply didn't publish a January issue -- another measure for the medium's financial distress.

While a 7.7% decline in monthly ad pages is hardly cause for celebration, it's an improvement over magazines' overall performance in 2009 -- which was generally disastrous for all branches of the media industry, but especially so for print.

According to separate figures from the Publishers Information Bureau, ad pages for the first nine months of 2009 declined over 27% to just under 120,000.

By all accounts, the fourth quarter wasn't much kinder.

In fact, the slide in ad pages has been going on so long that it tempers the (relatively) good news of a mere 7.7% drop.

Ad pages were already tumbling in January 2009 -- contributing to a 26% decline in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008, per PIB.

This year's comparisons were even easier. Viewed in this context, the 7.7% drop at the beginning of 2010 is a bit ominous, holding out little hope of comfort or recovery for publishers traumatized by the last year's free fall.

It seems that the Seattle Times couldn't be bothered to do even a bit of simple research.

If they had, they might have spared themselves from publishing an editorial that got the facts about American trade with Cuba completely wrong:

SEN. Maria Cantwell calls our attention to a law, signed by President Obama, allowing Cuba to buy U.S. farm produce and pay after the goods are shipped. The law reverses a Treasury ruling during the Bush years that Cuba had to pay in advance — a ruling that stopped the trade altogether.

As Humberto Fontova of the Babalu Blog colorfully pointed out:

$720 million just last year in U.S. exports to Cuba! We're Cuba's BIGGEST food supplier for almost a decade!...and YET..?!

...And YET the editorial staff of an eminently prestigious big-city newspaper was incapable of the ONE Google search that now makes COMPLETE JACKASSES of them ALL!!!

On his own terms, President Obama is a failure. During the presidential campaign, he fought hammer and tongs with Hillary Rodham Clinton on the best way to govern. Clinton, casting herself as a battle-scarred political veteran, argued that diligence, dedicated detail work and working the system were essential for success. Obama, donning the mantle of a redeemer descending from divine heights, argued that his soaring rhetoric was more than "just words"…

"Tuesday morning there was a story on Yahoo/AP titled "Economic Growth less than expected". The story was removed but CBS still had it under Economy Growing, But Less Than Expected. A few hours later there is now a new story from AP titled Recovery likely strengthening after weaker 3Q."

Re: AP changing horses every few hours.The AP has always been a corrupt news service, IMO. It’s just now everyone knows it. The rags going broke are still clinging to lies and deceptive practices. Someone needs to tell the corrupted media that suppressing the news isn’t working out too well these days. They don't seem to get it.

Last November, Melanie Silly Bee penned a ridiculous column about trusting the media. I ask you Miss Melly, whose fault is it that the old media is going bust? The comments track back to her failure days with the Duke Lacrosse Scandal. She will never live down her corrupted reporting exposure at the N & O. ***From the Editor: Where do you stand on trust of the media?

By Melanie Sill msill@sacbee.comExcerpt:First, the news. According to the latest report from a group that has tracked views on media since 1985, U.S. public opinion on the [accuracy of news stories is at a two-decade low]. Americans think about as well of news providers as they do of California legislators.http://www.sacbee.com/fromtheeditor/story/2210459.html

Mel Silly tweets like a bird, a dodo bird that is. In case your comedy intake meter is running low, you can read ‘Her Sillyness’ for a laugh. Howard Weaver, the bald eagle, twits with her. Man, you can’t make this stuff up!https://twitter.com/melaniesill

The AP is totally useless. In the near future, when newspapers in their current form have gone the way of the horse and buggy, will the corrupt journalists involved in their demise, finally begin to confront the real reasons for their demise? I doubt it, because they are blind as bats brought into the daylight.

What to do for has-been journalists? Apply to the “Sucker Package” for taxpayers’ to bankroll a study of old media dinosaurism, and the fossilization of the backroom boys of KR. As long as you voted for the ‘One’ in freefall, you are a shoe in for any of ACORN’s leftover funds. Perhaps the j-school professors can save the industry they have ruined with their brain-dead students. Not!

Michelle Malkin has a good article today:-Beltway Christmas: Cash for corruptocrats-There is also a photo of Ben Nelson as the Joker that was posted near his hometown.--Is a picture of a white man in whiteface paint racist?

Ref: Nelson JokerizedHillbuzz.org has thrown down the gauntlet:Photoshop Challenge: Jokerize all 60 Democrats in the Senate

“We love that Missourians have Jokerized Claire McCaskill and images of her as the Joker are appearing all over the state. The same needs to be done to every single Democrat voting for the Heatlhcare Rationing Bill.”

How could any reasonable person question the unbiased professionalism of the classically trained AP reporter, Jennifer Loven?

Jennifer and her husband Roger Ballentine make such a cute couple when they attend all of the leftwing radical environmentalist functions her husband sponsors or attends. Of course none of this could possibly taint the objectivity of such a highly trained professional as Ms. Loven. Nope. Not a chance.

Don Surber writes: “Palin takes on Obamacare deal-making”“Now she takes on a corrupt Speaker of the House, a corrupt Senate Majority Leader and as corrupt president.”He concludes:“My money is on Sarah Palin.”

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